


Stars

by dontartichoke



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 04:32:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/857824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontartichoke/pseuds/dontartichoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A future fic where Nell Little is Batgirl and shares a bonding moment with Damian Wayne in the very early Gotham morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like and I'm glad to have finished something with these characters.

Oracle had told Nell she was free to go but for some reason she didn’t hold the urge to go straight home tonight. She took a seat down on the edge of the rooftop she was previously patrolling on and looked up into the Gotham night sky. Tonight Gotham has been proven to look like how it has in countless pictures of its skyline. Like a blanket of black covering the entire city. The current state of Gotham Summer takes away most if its clouds, getting to view the night sky in all its sun removed glory. Her eyes scanned the sky enjoying the sense of peace it is emitting right now. She felt herself take a double take and focused strongly on it seeing if the light she saw in the sky made any sort of movement.

“No way,” She muttered to herself in disbelief feeling the excitement in her rise up as the light in the night for once wasn’t a plane.

“Talking to yourself again?” She heard Damian ask from behind her.

“Yeah, like I do every day,” She answered looking back to see Damian walking towards her. “What are you doing here?” She asked as he took a seat beside her.

“Slow night and you?”

“I’m actually free to go, but in other news. A star is out tonight!” She said pointing to it enthusiastically. “I should probably take a picture of it,” She said to herself pulling out her phone hastily.

“You’re acting like you’ve never seen a star before, Batgirl,” He stated not dampening her excitement for a moment as she took the picture.

“It’s Gotham we hardly ever get stars,” She clarified.

“I know that,” He said. “Have you ever been outside of Gotham?” He asked capturing her complete attention. She knew it was hopeless with that green domino mask of his and his ability to mask any emotion he never wanted to be seen but looked over at him anyways hoping that she could read anything out of him.

“Uh, I took a trip to Blüdhaven once, when I was nine or eight can’t really remember,” She shared. An amused smile finally appeared on his face filling Nell with more confusion wondering what her response led him to think. “What is it that you find so amusing?”

“I’m picturing your expression when you finally go somewhere you can see hundreds of stars,”

“Well I don’t think you’re going to see much because I’d probably, no I know I would faint if that ever happened,” She said with an expression that Damian has often received from her, finding an odd sense comfort in it. He hoped that in recreating it with pen and paper would make it clear as to why but has hadn’t had any such luck yet.

“That’s somehow even better than what I imagined, Batgirl,” He commented. She chuckled in response somehow even finding her own embarrassment humorous.

“You never answered my question,” He reminded. “Unless it was really just because of a star, which would be surprising seeing as how often your unprompted whining about how you at least need three hours of sleep that night comes up,” He added.

“Just didn’t feel like it, I guess,” She responded. “I should be going home now trying to get whatever amount of sleep I can get, seeing how I promised to wake up before noon today,” She noted already missing her opportunity to sleep in this Saturday.

“Haven’t you watched enough cheesy movies to know not to make promises you can’t keep?” He asked.

“Yes but if I didn’t make that promise the past eight years of work I put into our friendship would be for nothing and I rather not have my best friend hate me because I skimped out on her birthday. Which would not be a problem if I hadn’t had to cancel on about half things we planned recently,” She ranted suddenly feeling like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.

“You know what I’m hearing right now?”

“What?”

“Whining,”

“Well I apologize if my whining which is totally warranted by the way annoys you,” She apologized falsely. “Have you ever wanted to be normal?” She blurted out. “You know like regular people kind of normal,” She clarified deciding to stick with the question she didn’t intend to ask.

“No,” He answered.

“Really? There was never a moment where you wanted to be normal,”

“I’ve tried to think about it once or twice but when I did it always seemed false, it felt unsettling like something’s missing, and tragically boring. I guess I can’t see the appeal, which be honest with yourself and look where you are, you are not a normal person, and considering your admiration for Brown and other oddities of yours, I’m positive you never were,” He catching her off guard. She looked away and replayed his words in her head.

“I guess you have a point,” She agreed.

She studied him for a moment and noticed a piece of glass was on his shoulder. She picked it up off him and easily figured it must of come from a broken beer bottle She released the shattered glass seeing no use for it and tried to follow its descent to the ground but was to high up to really see it to well. Now realizing how extremely high up she was at the moment. She felt herself get nudged forward making her gasp and feel like her heart was going to fly out of her chest, seriously thinking she was going to fall off. She quickly focused back on Damian noticing his hand on her back and hearing rare laugh coming out of him.

“That wasn’t funny!” She yelled trying to him multiple times despite knowing she was leaving obvious tells making him blocking them all a walk in the park and only seem to encourage his laughter.

“You’re right it was hilarious,” He said continuing to enjoy her misfortunes.

“No it wasn’t,” She said noticing her rightful anger drift away and laughs start to roll out.

“Your actions say otherwise,” He replied catching one her wrist in his hands quickly giving up on her mission to batter him.

“I’m just laughing because you’re laughing,” She said honestly she was easily susceptible to that infection. They continued to laugh enjoying the sense of lightness that is heavily absent in their lifestyle. As their laughs began to die down was when reality started to reenter her brain again. “Alright I’m going home for real this time, so try not to do anything stupid while I’m gone pretending to be a normal person,” She said.

“Good luck,”

“Don’t say it if you don’t mean it,” She replied and noticing a small smirk settle on his face. Damian moved his hand from her wrist up towards her own hands.

“I’ll take you one day,” He said with Nell feeling her eyebrow raise in response. “Someplace where you can see hundreds of stars at night,” He explained causing a warm feeling in her heart, one that she never quite expected she would get with anything having to do with him. “Mainly to see that reaction you mentioned with my own eyes,” He said returning everything back to normal, “And there’s a whole world out there to see and if Blüdhaven and Gotham is all you ever get to see, I might start to pity you,” He said finally releasing her hand.

“And I wouldn’t want that,”

“Exactly, Little,” He responded.

“Secret identity remember,” She said tugging on her cowl for emphasis.

“Oh right because so many people can hear us right now,” He said sarcastically.

“Whatever,” She said holding in the response of how if the shoe were on the other foot he would never let up on that minor mistake for a good two weeks. “Did you really mean it when you said you’d take me somewhere with hundreds of stars?” She asked.

“You literally told me right before, not to say something I didn’t mean. Are your reasoning skills somehow getting worse?”

“I was just making sure, because people in this town say they’re going to do a lot things, especially the things that you were talking about, but rarely does it ever actually happen for them,” She explained knowing that story too well for her own liking. She neglected the creeping pain of past disappointments and how many times she’s heard of people who have never left Gotham their entire lives. “So did you mean it?”

“Yes, I meant it,” He said sensing her sudden distress and knowing that meaning what he said was she needed to hear from him at the moment.

“Good,” She said trying to sound positive through a small lump in her throat. “Because I’m making sure you’re a man of your word by making you promise to me that you’ll do it,”

“How old are you again?”

“You promise?” She asked ignoring his previous question with her own question.

“When have I ever not been a man of my word?”

“Then you can say those words to me then right now with no regrets,”

“Tt, fine I promise,” He said with annoyance attached to it. Which was short lived because the unfamiliar sense of joy it gave him when she directed her smile full of hope towards him.

“Alright I’ll hold you to it,” She said pulling out her grappling hook, “Have good morning, Robin,” She said standing up.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to give you a pushing start?” He teased enjoying her sudden horror struck expression.

“No! I mean no thanks, I got this handled,” She said before leaping off the rooftop now readily headed towards her short lived hours of sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments would be nice.


End file.
